


Bait Dog

by xzombiexkittenx



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy learns and grows, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, Mention of Child Abuse, Racism, shady government agencies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 04:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14887826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xzombiexkittenx/pseuds/xzombiexkittenx
Summary: Secret Government agents are trying to harness the Upside Down for their own evil purposes and have snatched up some kids, including Erica Sinclair.





	Bait Dog

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the tags! Billy says the N word, some other racial slurs, and several slurs about gay people, as well as some generally ignorant statements. I think their use serves the story and the character, but I am happy to discuss it if you disagree. This is a redemption story, but it starts out pretty rough so please read responsibly.

Billy wakes up in a cage. He’s not alone, there is a row of cages with children of various ages and sizes locked in them. It looks like he’s the most recent acquisition. The one to his right is empty, there’s a little black girl on his left. She looks like someone dropped her off at the pound. Maybe that’s what this is. Maybe they’ve finally called the dogcatcher on all the darkies and homos and are just going to round them up and do who the fuck knows to them. And he’d thought Hawkins would be boring.

Inappropriate laughter bubbles up out of him and he can’t do anything but lie there and laugh until his eyes are watering and bloody spittle drips from his mouth. It doesn’t feel good; his ribs are tender, his stomach is one big bruise, the back of his head is grinding down into concrete, and he hurts all over. The little girl scoots over to the bars. If Billy reached out his hand they could probably touch. He keeps his hands to himself and lies there catching his breath.

“Are you okay?” she asks, in a whisper. She’s been crying. Her little brown face is blotchy and tear-streaked. There’s a nasty bruise on her temple. Billy didn’t even know you could make black skin do that but then again, he doesn’t know any black people except Max’s little friend with the bony goddamn knees.

“Had worse,” Billy says, which might not actually be true. He doesn’t think his jaw is broken but it hurts like a son of a bitch. 

Her face screws up, chin wobbling, big eyes shining with tears. “I want to go home,” she says.

“Fuck are you telling me for,” Billy says. “I just got here.”

The little girl presses her face to the bars. “I don’t know,” she says, sounding a little impatient. “You’re the grown up. Do something.”

“Kid,” he says, “I’m in a cage, same as you. Anyway, what’re you crying for? Niggers don’t feel as much pain as normal people, everyone knows that, you’ll be fine.”

The little girl pulls the hair toggle off the end of one of her braids. It’s a big plastic bead about half the size of a golf ball. With incredible accuracy she nails him right in the face with it. “You’re so stupid,” she says, crying again. Fat tears roll down her cheeks. “I hope the monsters eat you.” 

She sits on the other side of her cage and cries some more. She’s not the only one. The room is filled with the sound of sobbing kids. If the weird fucks who brought him here were really picking off undesirables they probably wouldn’t’ve stolen a bunch of kids. The guys who picked him up were shady white van types, but this setup is prepared, this isn’t some redneck fag bash like he thought it was going to be. He’s really fucked.

Billy heaves himself into a sitting position. The plastic hair tie rolls around crazily before settling. He picks it up and snaps the elastic a few times. “Kid,” he says. 

She just cries harder.

“I’m Billy.”

“I don’t care!”

He tosses the bobble back to her but she ignores it, and him. “How long have you been here?”

She wipes her nose on her sleeve and glares at him. “Why do you care? I’m just a…a…”

Billy shuffles around a bit so he can sit back against the bars. It hurts. He’d fought when they grabbed him, fought like his life fucking depended on it, but here he is. “Okay,” he says. The rest of the room, where it isn’t cages, is pretty bare. The lighting’s for shit. One of the fluorescent tubes is dying and the light buzzes and flickers. The floor is tiled and there are drains set in it. That seems bad. “Look, are they feeding us or what?”

“Twice a day,” she says. “They make us pee in a bucket.” Her nose wrinkles up. “It’s been…three days, I think?”

Billy had noticed his own bucket, and was trying not to think about it. “How old are you?”

She scoots a little closer to him. “Nine.”

“That’s cool,” Billy says. It’s not cool. What the hell does anyone want a nine-year-old girl for? Nothing good, that’s for sure. 

“I’m Erica,” she says grudgingly. “If you call me that word I’m not going to talk to you any more and you can just die and I won’t care.”

“That seems fair,” Billy says. He’s not real fond of people calling him a faggot, so he guesses it’s about the same.

She chews on the end of her braid for a while. “Sometimes they take kids out and don’t bring them back.”

Billy figured as much. He pats himself down, checking to see if he’s got anything in his pockets. He does not. They took his boots, his belt, and his jacket. Fuckers also took his lighter, his smokes, his goddamn keys. At least he wasn’t in his car. He’s such an idiot. Getting jumped in fucking Hawkins. Billy wants a cigarette. He wants a cigarette so badly he’d give his left nut for it. 

Billy eventually passes out again, curled up on the bare metal floor of the cage. He wakes up when the door to the room opens and some lab coat wearing motherfucker with a clipboard and a Taser comes in.

There’s a sick feeling in Billy’s stomach. He knows what the fuck is up, even if he’s not a hundred percent on what’s actually happening. It’s the same feeling he gets when Neil is in a mood. It’s the same feeling he gets when he looks at a boy and _wants_. It’s a no good feeling is the point.

Labcoat starts to open Erica’s cage and Billy loses it. “Hey!” he shouts, pounding his fist against the bars hard enough to rattle them. “Hey, fuckface, over here!” He’s got Labcoat’s attention now. “Yeah you, you pedo piece of shit,” Billy says. “You like that dark meat, huh?”

The stun baton fits neatly between the bars and Billy’s knees go out from under him. He gags and spits, mouth watering like he might be sick. But his dad never called him a stupid fuck for nothing, so he gets back up. Labcoat looks mildly impressed.

“You wanna do it to someone,” Billy says, “do it to me.”

They drag him off, and he sees Erica pressed to the bars, crying again. He hopes she’s not crying for him.

* * *

Erica pees in the bucket, which is super gross and they still haven’t given her any toilet paper. The first time she had to pee she took her underwear off and used that to wipe herself, and they haven’t taken the dirty panties yet, so she keeps using little clean corners. Her corduroy trousers are too rough without her underwear and she feels nasty, but it’s better than having pee pants so she sits as far away from the bucket and her dirty underwear as she can, chews the end of her braid, and tries not to think about it.

She hopes her parents aren’t too worried. She was supposed to be home days ago. Lucas’ friend went missing and everyone said he was dead, but he wasn’t. She hopes her parents don’t think she’s dead.

Erica started counting when they took Billy away but she lost track of what number she was on, and now she’s not sure how long he’s been gone. He’s a buttmunch. That much is very clear. Her dad says that people who use the N-word are not nice people and she should tell him if someone says it to her. But the girl in the cage on her other side hasn’t said a word since she woke up and Erica is scared. Maybe Billy isn’t nice, but he stopped the bad men from taking her, and that’s not nothing.

They bring her food and empty the bucket. Then they bring Billy back.

Erica sits as far away from the door of the cage as she can. If they try to take her she’ll hit them. She’ll punch them in the mouth.

They don’t try to take her. They dump Billy in his own cage, lock the door, and leave.

Erica crawls over to the bars and holds out her hand, trying to reach him. “Billy,” she whispers, and isn’t sure why she’s whispering. “Billy!”

He’s bleeding. His shirt is torn and his arm looks like a dog chewed on it. Erica stretches out as far as she can but she can’t reach him. She thinks about throwing her hair tie at him again, but he doesn’t look good and it would probably hurt him.

“You janky redneck motherfucker,” she says, because she heard it on late night TV once when she was supposed to be asleep.

Billy opens his eyes. “What’d you just call me?” he slurs.

Erica doesn’t cry. She doesn’t. She wipes her face and stretches as far as she can. He fumbles an arm out – not the bad one – and takes her hand.

“Hey,” he says. “Don’t worry. Janky redneck motherfuckers don’t feel much pain either.” 

He’s a stupid, nasty liar. He’s bleeding, and he’s crying, she can see he’s crying. Erica clutches his hand. 

Billy turns his head so he’s looking at her. He hesitates then grins at her, all bloody and gross. “Do black people get tans?” he asks.

Erica lets go of his hand. “Oh my god,” she says. “You’re so stupid.”

“How should I know?” he asks.

“Read a book!” Erica says. But he looks really bad, so she takes his hand again.

Billy cries for a little bit. Not like her. He just sort of leaks for a while. Eventually he wriggles closer to the bars so they don’t have to reach so far. 

“One of the others said there were monsters,” Erica says. “They took her out a second time and she didn’t come back.”

“She was right,” Billy says. “You don’t let them take you out. I want you to bite them, kick them, punch them. Go for their eyes, okay kid? I want you to bite their nose and stick your thumbs in their goddamn eyes if they try to take you out of here.”

“I miss my mom,” Erica says.

Billy’s smile is less scary this time. Probably because he’s still leaking tears. “Me too,” he says.

“Billy?”

“Yeah?”

“What kind of monsters are they?”

He lets go of her hand, sits up, and unbuttons his shirt slowly with his left hand so he doesn’t have to move his mangled right arm. Carefully he sets his teeth in the torn-up sleeve of his shirt and rips it off. He uses the ripped off sleeve to bandage himself. It’s not a very good bandage.

“I don’t…” Billy eases his shirt back on and lies down again. “I don’t want to scare you but in case they do take you…” He wipes at his face. “They’re big. Bigger than me. If they put you in the room you need to stay very quiet and don’t scream. Even if you want to. It’s going to attack you. It has a big mouth, like a flower, but with teeth, okay? If you write with your right hand, put up your left arm in front of your face. It might bite your arm.”

It definitely bit Billy’s arm.

“You let it bite your arm, and kick it. Kick it as much as you can. They’re going to let it bite you for a little while and then they’re going to call it off. You just have to keep it off you long enough, okay?”

“You think someone’s looking for us?” Erica asks, because she doesn’t want to think about monsters biting Billy’s arm until it looks like hamburger.

Billy squeezes her hand. “Of course they’re looking for you, sweet pea,” he says. He sounds funny and his eyes are closed.

“Hey,” Erica says. “Hey, don’t go to sleep.”

“Just for a bit,” Billy says, and his hand goes limp in hers. He’s out like a light.

Erica makes herself as comfortable as she can, legs crossed, elbows propped on knees, chin in hand. Obviously, they’re going to have to escape. Billy’s an idiot, and possibly a kid too, but he’s big like an adult and he looks like a criminal, so he’s got to know how to pick locks, or knife fight, or something. 

Step one is to get out of the cages. The bars are strong, Erica already tried shaking them and kicking them, but all she did was stub her toe real bad. They’ll have to break the padlocks. They’re not even fancy padlocks. She’s almost certain that one key fits all. So if they can grab the keys from one of the men in labcoats, they can get free.

No one’s ever called her sweet pea before. It’s stupid. Billy’s stupid and racist, and he didn’t let them hurt her. They were going to take her and let a monster eat her.

Her dad told her that ignorant people are scared of things they don’t understand, and when someone calls her names it’s because they’re ignorant. Lucas is always going on and on about nerd stuff, maybe he could talk at Billy until he’s less ignorant.

When Will went missing, Lucas was on his walkie-talkie every second. Him and his lame-o nerd friends looked for Will, she knows that. She thinks they might actually have helped find him. She’s not supposed to know anything but Lucas is loud and she could hear him sometimes. Maybe Lucas is looking for her now. Yeah. When they get out. When they get out she’ll make Billy listen to one of Lucas’ boring nerd talks at dinner and then he can be less ignorant and they’ll be even.

She chews on her braid a little bit, it makes her feel better even if it makes her look like a baby. It’s not like anyone can see her.

Soon as Billy wakes up, they’re going to come up with a plan. With her smarts and his whatever they’ll get home okay.

* * *

The adults are busy and Steve has found himself in charge of the Party, plus El, minus Lucas whose mom hasn’t let him out of her sight for longer than it takes him to go to the bathroom. Steve’s not entirely sure all the kids have permission to be at his house, or even how he wound up den mom to Mike’s insane Scoutmaster. But here they are. Mike is drawing up battle plans that Steve feels obligated to shoot down because he doesn’t want to die and maybe no one actually gave these kids permission to be here, but damnit, he’s in charge of them now and if they die on his watch he’s going to be really fucked up about it forever.

Steve has been tuning the Party out for the better part of an hour so he can go over the facts to himself, the better to counter any arguments that start with “We should arm ourselves” or include the idea of leaving the house because the Chief will literally murder him and bury him in the woods if he lets El get into any kind of trouble.

Jesus, how is he supposed to stop a kid who can kill him with her brain? He can’t even stop Mike Wheeler and his frankly hilarious bitchface.

Erica Sinclair has been missing for six days and three to four hours. The police have it narrowed down to a one-hour window in which she went missing. They say that’s good. They don’t say that after the first twenty-four hours they’re more likely to find a body than a child, and that’s if they’re lucky enough to find a body. The Sinclairs have been on the local news, asking for whoever took Erica to bring her home. Mike and the rest of the nerd herd think it has something to do with the Upside Down. At first Steve had argued that the odds of someone being kidnapped by a pervert were way higher than someone getting sucked into a nightmare second dimension, but then he thought about the last few years and conceded that, yeah, it was probably a nightmare hell dimension since, as far as he knew, no Hawkins kids had ever been snatched by a pedophile or a Satanist sex cult, and multiple people had been to the Upside Down.

What’s more interesting to Steve is that Billy Hargrove has been missing for approximately three days. The police can’t narrow it down more than that since he habitually snuck out at night. His father thinks he ran away, Hop’s not so sure.

Erica Sinclair is missing and is missed. Even Max thinks her brother ran away. No one is missing him.

“What if,” Steve says, even though no one is listening. “What if Erica was a mistake. What if the people who took her thought she wouldn’t be missed?”

“Billy’s not missing!” Max says, so at least someone listens to Steve. “He ran away because he wants to go be a queer in San Francisco and if Billy wants to be a faggot and die of the plague it shouldn’t distract us from Erica!”

Steve likes Max. He does. But that’s just fucked up.

“Whoa!” Dustin says. “Mad Max, not cool.”

Steve sits up from where he was flopped prone on the couch. “Who said that?” he asks. Max is a good kid who helped save the world. There’s no way she came up with that shit on her own.

Max scowls at them, shoving a curtain of hair back behind her ear. “His dad said it, okay.”

The Party goes a little bit quiet at that. Then El says, “Papa lies,” and everyone goes super dead quiet.

Max sticks her chin out. “You don’t know,” she says.

El frowns and it’s like the temperature in the room drops by ten degrees. “I know,” she says. “Papa lies. I know what it’s like. When.” She holds a fist in front of her stomach. “Like poison. It hurts so you make other people hurt and you think it will go away.” She unclenches her fist. “He’s still listening to Papa.”

Then Mike Wheeler pipes up and says, “Okay, so we look for runaways. Like, missing kids that no one’s missing in a…three town radius? We find Billy, we find Erica.”

Which is not what Steve meant when he brought it up. But also, yeah, the kid’s onto something.

El looks at him with her big, world-ending eyes. “You’ll drive us,” she says. “When the time comes. You’ll keep us safe.”

Steve groans. Then he gets up to raid the garage for tire irons, big-ass wrenches, and – god help him – some gas cans. 

Less than twenty-four hours, two library runs, and four large pizzas later, and they’re up to their asses in the Upside Down and Steve is going to have a goddamn panic attack because the horrible tentacle tunnels grew and shifted and Steve got cut off from the kids and the last thing he heard was Dustin yelling at him not to worry.

Creepy government lab is one thing. Creepy government lab abruptly infested with out of control Upside Down? Not so much. Steve hauls his bandanna a little higher over his nose and wonders if it would be worth investing in some respirators. He could probably find some old WWII gas masks at the trunk sales that go on in some of the nearby kitschier towns. Although, that would be super creepy and he isn’t sure he wants to lead a gang of kids all tricked out in gasmasks. It sounds like one-way trip to nightmare town and he’s got enough of those already.

Steve is sweating through his shirt even though it’s cold. He thought he heard a noise and wound up in a room that, yep, is a new kind of nightmare. “Oh man,” Steve says, heartfelt. “This is fucked up to the max.”

Someone has put demodogs in cages.

He’s in a room, right? And it’s full of cages. And in those cages are demodogs.

Steve thinks wistfully about college applications. He wonders if there’s any way to put ‘monster hunter’ down under extracurriculars. 

He gets out Nancy’s backup piece (why the fuck does Nancy have a _primary piece_ how is this his life?) and takes aim. He’s a lousy shot, but even he can hit something that’s basically immobile at nearly point-blank range. He walks down the laboratory aisle, making sure each one is dead. He has to reload. What. The. Fuck.

Steve got the run-down about the shady government nonsense that led to Jane’s superpowers and Will’s disappearance. He got the run-down about their replacements who tried to help Will, but also didn’t, and got exposed in the news. This time he doesn’t need a run-down. This time, he’s up to his ass in it, so on the one hand he won’t need Jonathan Byers to explain it to him, but also he kind of wishes this was the kind of adventure where he would need a recap at the end of it. But no, the adults are off doing fuck knows what, and Nancy and Jonathan are talking to their “secret contact” and now Steve’s in it up to the neck. 

So here he is, in a secret government lab where some genius thought that they could cage demodogs, and train them up. There are clipboards on the cages. Clipboards. Because someone put demodogs in cages like labrats. Steve feels like he might be getting a little bit hysterical. If evil government shitbirds want to experiment on demodogs, that’s their own business. Steve is just here to find the kids that have gone missing and save them, find the Party and ream them out for getting separated from him, and then go home, take two of his mom’s Valium, and pass the fuck out.

Steve sticks the gun into his jeans, hopes he doesn’t accidentally shoot off his own butt, and hefts his baseball bat. He creeps down the hallway, ears perked up for monsters, or government shitbirds, or any other horrible thing the world wants to throw at him. 

A small explosion rocks the building. That’ll be the kids then. Mike is a goddamn firebug. He heads towards the sound and finds himself in a dead-end corridor. He’s about to turn around when he hears the faint sound of crying.

Mike was right. Steve tries not to think about how many kids there are in cages, little kids, who no one is missing. He breaks open the locks with his bat, tells the kids to wait, wait for him and he’ll get them to safety.

It’s not until he gets to the end of the row and sees Erica – thank fuck, he’s found her and she’s okay, she looks okay – that he also sees Billy.

Billy’s standing, but that’s about it. His right arm is hanging limply by his side, blood dripping off his fingers. It looks like his shoulder might be dislocated. It’s definitely been used as a chew toy. He’s barely upright, hunched over, protecting his ribs, staring up through the sweaty, wrecked mess of his hair. His eyes are electric like St. Elmo’s fire, half of his face is a mask of blood.

“Holy shit,” Steve says.

Billy grins at him, loopy and punch drunk. “Hey pretty boy,” he says. He’s swaying where he stands. “Got a smoke?”

* * *

Max sits in the waiting room with her mom and Neil, with the Sinclairs, and the Byers, and Hopper, and the Party. She feels a little bit sick. Everyone is celebrating. Upside Down closed off, kids rescued, day saved. They found Erica and she’s not hurt. She had a little bruise on her head, but other than that she’s totally fine. They’re keeping her for observation just to be safe. They’ve got some kind of child psychologist in from the City, wherever that is, to talk to the kids. She’s been in there a while.

Billy’s still in surgery. His arm was mangled from fingertip to shoulder, chewed up and bloody. It’s been several hours and they’re still working away at him. He didn’t run away. He’d been kidnapped and she hadn’t cared. She’d been glad he was gone.

Hopper sits down next to her. “Don’t worry, kid,” he says, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Your brother will be okay.”

You didn’t believe he needed help either, Max wants to scream at him. We let him get taken, just like the other kids who no one missed.

The Sinclairs have been a mess, even Lucas. They’re crying as much as they are laughing. They hold onto each other. They’re thanking God, they’re thanking Steve, and Hopper, and Max and the rest of the Party. They’ve been through hell and come out the other side and they’re okay, they’re together, and they’ll look after each other.

Neil had wanted to wait until Billy was out of surgery to go to the hospital. The only reason he came was because Max was there and they didn’t want her to be by herself with the whole circus of doctors and lawyers and media people. Neil and Susan aren’t laughing or crying. They’re just waiting. Billy was gone and now he’s back, and they’re probably wondering if they’ll have to pay the hospital bill or not.

From the other room Max can hear Erica’s voice rising into a full-blown panic tantrum. “They’re hurting Billy!” she screams. “I want to see him!”

The adults flutter around, and the child psychologist emerges and tells them that Erica has experienced a trauma and that, right now, she still feels like her safety is reliant on Billy’s survival. It will take time for her to settle but kids are resilient and since it seems like the families are already close…

Neil looks at Max, and he looks at Lucas. Max hasn’t seen him look at her like that before. It’s an ugly look, a mean look.

Mrs. Sinclair doesn’t notice the look. She clutches at Neil and Max’s mom, a tissue still crumpled in her hand. “She said he protected her,” she says. “They were going to…” Her voice cracks. “He protected her. Your son saved my Erica, my baby...” She’s crying now, big, grateful tears.

“I’m glad he did the right thing,” Neil says stiffly.

Mr. Sinclair gently pulls his wife away. Max is pretty sure he saw the look.

Max never thought too much about Neil. In all honesty they didn’t have much of a relationship. He deferred to her mom about raising Max. Most of the time Max figured he hadn’t wanted another kid, and really didn’t know what to do about a daughter, so they just ignored each other as best they could. She would’ve rather had someone cool, who did fun dad stuff, but she’d told herself it could be worse. 

She thinks it might be worse.

It’s like a magic eye picture coming into focus. 

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Max mutters to no one in particular, and flees.

She goes and stands in a quiet hallway and pulls on her own hair. Her heart is too loud, and her head is too quiet, the only thing in it saying: you left him to die you left him to die.

She stands there, crying a little bit, but it feels fake, like she’s not really crying for Billy, she’s crying because she’s not a good person.

Steve is the one who comes and finds her. He leans against the wall, then slides down so he’s sitting, all elbows and knees. “It’s pretty messed up, huh?” he says sympathetically.

“He’ll think I looked for him,” Max says, panic rising in her throat until it feels like it’s choking her. “How do I tell him I wasn’t looking?”

“Tell him…” Steve tips his head back and stares up at the ceiling. There are dark circles around his eyes and he looks more like a kid than an adult. “Tell him you believed Neil’s lies. But then you didn’t. And you don’t now. None of us do.”

Max sits down across from him. “I didn’t mean to call him those things,” she says, hiding behind her hair.

“Yeah, you did,” Steve says, and looks at her, but he’s smiling a small, sad little smile. “But we all say stupid stuff and then we learn better, and we don’t do it any more.”

They sit there quietly for a few minutes.

“Hey Steve,” Max says. “I really like Lucas.”

“Oh jeeze,” Steve says.

“I think Neil’s going to be really shitty about it.”

Steve sighs. “It sounds like that therapist lady thinks Erica should ‘spend structured time with Billy so she can reassure herself of her own safety.’” He makes stupid finger-quotes in the air. “So, you’re probably off the hook for hanging out with Lucas.”

Steve shuffles like he’s thinking about getting up, and Max says, “Hey Steve,” again.

“Yeah?” Steve says.

“Do you think Neil will hit me, too?”

Steve lurches awkwardly towards her, half crawling across the hallway until he can hug her. It’s uncomfortable, and her neck is at a weird angle, and he lets go too fast and kind of clips her nose a bit with his shoulder. “Sorry,” he says, sitting back on his heels. “It’s been a really awful day.”

He was the one who found the kids. He was the one who half-carried Billy out. He’s wearing a nurse’s scrub shirt because his own was covered in Billy’s blood.

“If he hits you,” Steve says, deadly serious, “I’ll murder him. I’ll put him in the goddamn ground. El will help me.”

“Okay,” Max says, and gets up, because she’s super not old enough to deal with Steve Harrington’s emotional breakdown. That sounds like something Hopper should handle.

She goes back to the waiting area where she can still hear Erica having a meltdown over not being able to see Billy. 

Steve was right. It’s messed up.

* * *

Being stuck in the hospital isn’t so bad. Billy’s on the good shit. He can’t feel his fucked-up arm, his ribs are a distant thought, and even his head doesn’t hurt. He could get used to this, just lying quietly, floating, not really in his own body, just existing. He’s not sure how long he’s been staring at the insides of his eyelids like a goober before they let Erica in to see him. He’s loopy and feeling no pain and doesn’t notice she’s there until a little hand fits into his own and he realizes his eyes are shut.

“Hi, sweet pea,” he slurs, turning to look at her. “You okay?”

She looks better, at least. Someone got her a change of clothes and she’s in adorably hideous pyjamas, all neon, clashing patterns, with big, fluffy slippers on her feet. Her housecoat is pastel pink. She looks little, and soft, and safe. There’s a lump in his throat and his eyes start to sting. 

“I’m fine,” Erica says, and reaches out with her free hand to wipe his face, which is a little bit wet. “So are you.” 

It’s nice. She’s the first person to actually tell him that he’s not seriously hurt. Or maybe a nurse came in. He’s not sure. It’s all a bit of a blur. He’s got vague memories of the ambulance, and maybe getting wheeled into the ER, and a bunch of people and bright lights, but he’s not sure how the images fit together.

“You were in the ER for aaaaaaages,” Erica says, like he did it to annoy her.

Billy shuffles over in the bed so there’s enough room for her to get up and sit on the blankets. Both their hands are getting sweaty but neither of them makes a move to let go. She heaves a huge sigh. “My mom won’t stop crying,” Erica says. “I’m never going to be allowed out again.” Then she brightens. “But the doctor said we get to hang out. To help process.”

“Cool,” Billy says, and kind of means it. It’s stupid, but he feels better knowing that Erica is okay, that he can see she’s okay. Maybe she feels better too.

“Yeah,” Erica says. Then, shyly, “They’d like to meet you, my parents. Now you’re awake.”

Billy’s not sure he’s sober enough for that shit. “Maybe later,” he says. “I’m too tired. You’re enough company for me, pretty girl.”

She gives him the most unimpressed look he’s ever seen and he loves it. He loves this kid. She’s the best. He tells her so and she manages to look even less impressed. It’s fantastic. Erica wipes at his face again with the sleeve of her housecoat. It’s just as soft as it looks.

“Your mom is here, too,” Erica offers.

“She’s not my mom,” Billy says. “My mom died. Susan’s just my step-mom.”

“Oh,” says Erica. “Well, my stupid brother and his friends are here, and Steve Harrington, and the Sherriff, and they were all looking for you.”

The good feeling he had looking at Erica washes away in a cold, sick rush. “Who’s your brother?” he asks.

Before he can stop her, she hops off the bed and bolts out of the room, slippers slapping on the floor. Then she’s back and Lucas fucking Sinclair comes into the room along with Max and her shithead friends, with Steve, King of the Babysitters, bringing up the rear. She clambers back up on the bed and takes his hand again. Steve, Max, Lucas, and all the others make the same incredulous face.

They saved him. Steve goddamn Harrington and his brat pack saved him. Billy’s high so he lets himself give in to the sheer absurdity of the situation. “I guess I owe you a ‘thank you,’” he says.

Steve shuffles around like an idiot. “Don’t worry about it. I’d do it for anyone.”

The labcoats dragged Billy into a closed room and left him there. They set monsters on him to teach the monsters commands. Stop. Wait. Go. He was their fucking bait dog and Steve is making sure to let him know it wasn’t personal. He didn’t look for Billy. Steve wasn’t there to save him. He was incidental.

Then, like Steve can see what he’s thinking, Steve flinches. “I mean…Look. That’s not what I mean. I’m sorry it took us so long to realize you were missing,” he says. “But actually, you were the key. We found everyone because of you.” Steve jams sunglasses onto his stupid face even though he’s inside.

“Steve figured it out,” Max offers and one of the boys scowls – not the one with the teeth, or the zombie kid.

“I figured it out!” the boy protests. Nancy Wheeler’s little brother, that’s who it is. Someone should tell him he looks just like his sister. Billy bets that would really chap his ass, get him to make that same stuck-up princess look. He bets it would be hilarious.

“You did not,” says the kid with the teeth.

Zombie boy is smiling at them all with great fondness. “It was a Party effort,” he says.

“No,” says the kid with the teeth, “I remember!”

Steve puts his hands on his hips. It’s hilarious. He looks like such a mama hen. “It doesn’t matter whose idea it was, even if it was mine, Mike, the important thing is that everyone got home safe.”

Billy winks at Steve, which he is 90% blaming on the morphine. “Thanks, Your Highness,” he says.

Steve’s face goes pink. “Yeah, well.” He manufactures a cocky grin. “I’d tell you not to cream your pants, but I think you’re wearing a gown with your ass hanging out the back.”

Billy laughs this time, even though it makes his ribs ache. “Was anyone else hurt?”

“Nah,” Steve says. “We got ‘em.”

“Okay,” Billy says and holds onto Erica’s hand a little tighter. Mostly he’s glad that no one else got eaten or torn up, but a very small, selfish, childish part of him wants to know why he’s the one who always takes the hit. He wonders what he did wrong.

“Thanks for saving my sister,” Lucas says, with very little grace. He jams his hands in his pockets and scowls. There’s a meaningful pause in the air, like everyone’s waiting for him to add something to that statement, but he lets it hang there awkwardly until Max bursts out with: “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Billy’s first reaction is to call her a liar, but her face is blotchy red-and-pale, and her eyes are watery, and she looks miserable. Plus, he thinks the morphine drip just hit him again because everything is soft and far away.

“There were monsters,” he tells them, very seriously. “You guys gotta watch out. Riding your bikes around at all hours. Labcoats…and monsters.” He thinks he might be slurring again.

Erica bristles at everyone, like the angriest, sweetest little porcupine. “Go away!” she tells everyone. “He’s tired!”

He is tired. Billy smiles at her as his eyes close again. She’s okay. He kept her safe. He did it right. He’ll just rest his eyes for a few minutes. 

* * *

The main problem with covering up this government secret agency in particular is how shitty they are at being secret, Hopper thinks. The number of people who know about the Upside Down just keeps growing. So far, it’s him and El, Joyce and her kids, Mike and Nancy, Lucas and Erica, Billy and Max, Steve, Dustin, some conspiracy nut, and it’s starting to feel like by the time they’ve finally done with parallel universes the entirety of Hawkins High is going to know too.

Some genius has decided that it would be best if no parents were involved, so the latest Sinclair and Hargrove additions are on their own, just like the other kids. Hopper’s the one who gets to sit with Billy and Erica while they’re told that the people responsible have been taken care of. There is no more lab. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. They are also told in no uncertain terms that any public discussion of monsters and human experiments will not go well for them. 

“Are you threatening a nine-year-old?” Billy asks, wiggling around in his bed like he’s going to get up and fight the government agent dispatched to talk to him.

“Take it easy, kid,” Hopper says. “Don’t pop your stitches.” Billy has a lot of stitches. One of the doctors had shrugged and said he stopped counting after a hundred and fifty. Everything Hopper knows about Billy is bad: he’s trouble, he’s a bully, he beat the shit out of Steve, and he routinely speeds. But he faced down a demodog, just like the rest of their motley crew, and he protected Erica Sinclair.

El had tugged on Hopper’s sleeve before he’d gone into the meeting. “He’s very sad,” she said. “Inside. Like me. Mad and sad.”

“I don’t think you and Billy Hargrove have much in common,” Hopper had reassured her.

El gave him a very serious look and tugged harder. “He’s scared. And little inside. Be nice.”

And Hopper had protested that he was always nice, and gone to sit through yet another government coverup, and thought: maybe Billy Hargrove was scared and little inside, but boy did he always seem to be picking a fight. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that Erica looks equally like she’s going to start some shit. Her jaw is clenched, and she looks about two seconds from kicking the government agent in the shins.

“We’re familiar with the drill here,” Hopper tells the guy. “I guess this can be my yearly reminder that I don’t want you in my town, and I’d appreciate it if you got the fuck out of Hawkins.” He gets up, hoping the guy will take the hint that it’s time to go. Mercifully, he does.

The government agent makes another veiled threat but leaves before Erica launches herself across the room and starts pummeling him. Smart move.

His next stop is dealing with Steve Harrington who is seventeen, and should not be left in charge of anything more complicated than a dishwasher, but who walked back into the mouth of Hell and dragged out half a dozen kids behind him. Steve is home now. 

Hop knocks on the door and isn’t surprised when Steve answers it himself. His parents, according to Dustin who can’t keep his mouth shut, are never home. Today seems to be no exception. He looks tired, dark circles under his eyes and premature lines bracketing his mouth. He should be busy trying to get access to weed and beer and girls’ panties, not fucking about with monsters.

“Hey,” Hop says. 

Steve invites him in and offers him a beer, which Hop is sorely tempted to accept, but he still has an afternoon of driving around to worry about, so he takes a water instead.

“You doing okay?” Hop asks. Sure, Steve’s one of the kids who managed to get out without a scratch on him, but he’s still a kid.

Steve shrugs, pure teenager. “Fine,” he says, like Hop just asked him how his day at school went.

“I can set you up with the shrink,” Hop offers. True, it’s a government shrink from the same bullshit agency that caused all the problems in the first place, but it’s got to be better than nothing.

Steve opens the fridge and fiddles with the six pack that’s in there, already half gone. He takes one out, almost defiantly, and cracks it open. Hop lets him drink it, figures he’s earned it. “Nah,” Steve says. “I’m fine.”

“Sure,” Hop says. “I bet Billy and Erica would like to see you.”

“Why?” Steve asks, genuinely confused.

Teenagers, Jesus Christ, they’re not especially smart. “Can’t think of a single reason,” Hop says.

Steve glowers at him and sips at his shitty beer. “Billy and I aren’t friends,” he says.

“Maybe you should be. Seems like that boy could use a few friends.”

* * *

Steve goes to see Billy, because he’ll never admit it but he’s a little bit scared of the Chief. Plus, he wants to see Erica. Only, when he gets there, he finds out that Erica has been sent home. Billy’s still stuck in the hospital because they’re worried about the sheer number of stitches, the head trauma, and the potential for sepsis. 

“I’d kill a man for a smoke,” Billy tells him, when Steve asks if he can get him anything. So, Steve goes and buys a pack of smokes, then comes back, finds a wheelchair, and tells a nurse he’s taking Billy out for some air.

Billy is quiet until they get outside to a smoking area. “I guess that night, last year, you were doing some monster shit, huh?” Billy says. “Not gang-molesting my step-sister.”

“Gross,” Steve says, and kicks the breaks on the wheelchair to park it.

Billy lights up a cigarette with great relish. “It didn’t look good, Harrington, I’ll tell you that for free.”

“It never does,” Steve sighs. “There was a dead demodog in the fridge. I’m surprised it didn’t just fall out and land on one of us. I mean, that night was so messed up, it kind of seemed like that would’ve been the icing on the cake.”

The nicotine hits Billy like a ton of bricks. He’s got a headrush, he feels like he might fall over if he wasn’t already sitting. It’s fantastic. Like the first beer of the night. Like the end of a joint, like getting to first base with someone you never thought you’d get with. “Jesus,” Billy says. “Your life.” 

“Your life, too.”

Billy groans. “Kind of makes me wish it had just been a fag bash after all.”

Steve’s usually bouncy hair is a little flat, a little wilted, like it’s as tired as the rest of him. Billy knows what that’s like, feeling tired all the time with the weight of all the bullshit. But now…they both know about the monsters. Maybe that’s enough to lighten the load a little.

But Steve’s expression doesn’t lighten up like Billy thought it would. “You figured you were getting jumped?” Steve says, mouth turned down unhappily.

“Small town like this, stylish guy like me? Not the first time someone…” Billy trails off and then smirks at Steve, pretending it doesn’t matter.

“Huh,” Steve says. 

For a second Billy thinks Steve will call him on it. That, even with monsters in this world, Billy being a big queer might actually be a step too far.

Instead, Steve parks his ass on the sidewalk next to Billy’s chair and flaps a hand at him. “Lemme bum one,” Steve says.

Billy passes the pack over to him and Steve taps one out. “You bought them,” Billy says.

“They’re for you,” Steve says. “Get well soon.” He snorts out smoke and starts choking as he tries to light up and laugh at the same time. “Get well soon, here’s some cancer.”

Billy smiles a little. “If the demo-gods don’t get you than the skitters will.”

“Demo-DOGS,” Steve corrects.

“Like I give a shit,” Billy says. His stitches are itchy and they hurt. He wants to scratch. Normally he’d scratch next to the cut, but he’s nothing but wounds at this point so there’s not a lot of real estate. Then he asks, “Why dogs?”

Steve blows a smoke ring, which is bullshit, Billy’s been smoking since he was fourteen and still can’t do that. “Because there are bigger ones. The kids called them demo-gorgons, or something, which…I don’t know. These ones are smaller, so…demodogs.”

Billy’s hand is shaking. He clenches his teeth so they don’t start chattering. “What. Steve…Those fuckers I saw are the…small ones?”

“I guess.” Steve stares at the cigarette like it holds the meaning to life. “Nancy, Jonathan, and I tried to get a demogorgon a while back. Didn’t make too much of a dent. El had to kill it.”

“Who’s El?”

Steve tells him. About the Upside Down, about the girl who died, the boy who lived, and the lab experiment who turned out to be just a kid too, who can close rifts between the worlds with her freaking brain like a superhero. Billy’s not sure if he should be shitting his pants with fear or if he should be rolling his gimpy ass to Chief Hopper’s place as fast as he can go because this bullshit town has a superhero living it in and he wants to meet her so badly he can taste it.

The whole thing is incredible. Like, SAT prep meaning incredible. He can barely believe it.

“What are you?” Billy says resentfully, “Some kinda knight in shining armour?”

“Oh yeah, that’s what all the preteens call me,” Steve says. “Shit, they’re the little lunatics that keep dragging me into this mess. They’re mostly fine, you know? This stuff doesn’t bother them as much, I think…someone said…They’re…resilient. They bounce.”

“Sure,” Billy says.

Steve has been letting ash accumulate on the end of his cigarette like some kind of wine aunt, so Billy takes it from him, ashes it, and hands it back.

“You tried to beat Lucas up,” Steve says. “Now you save Erica…I can’t keep it straight.”

Billy shrugs, and then regrets it when his shoulder starts to hurt again. “Lucas is a little shit, and you were all hiding Max–”

“And he’s black,” Steve says, unforgiving.

“Yeah,” Billy admits. “My dad’s not too fond of that. She hangs out with him, I get my ass kicked.”

“That’s kind of fucked up,” Steve says.

“Not as fucked up as your life, apparently,” Billy says.

They smoke for a while. It’s not a comfortable silence, but it’s not hostile either.

“I can’t believe I got my ass kicked by a junior nightmare,” Billy says, eventually.

“Give it time,” Steve says, like a joke. Like a threat.


End file.
